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Haiti Report - October 7, 2007

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Haiti Report for October 7, 2007

The Haiti Report is a summary compilation of events as described in
Haiti and international media prepared by Konbit Pou Ayiti/KONPAY. It
does not reflect the opinions of any individual or organization. This
service is intended to create a better understanding of the situation
in Haiti by presenting the reader with reports that provide a variety
of perspectives on the situation. To make a donation to support this
service: Konbit Pou Ayiti, 7 Wall Street, Gloucester, MA, 01930 or
visit our website: http://www.konpay.org

IN THIS REPORT:

- - US and Other Donors Support Education
- - Countries Call for Extension of UN Peacekeeping Mission;
Deadline is October 15
- - Improved Environment for Freedom of Expression
- - DR to Lead Hemisphere Fight Against Rubella
- - New Border Forces Have Taken Control of Haiti-DR Border
- - Promoting Renewable Energy in the Caribbean
- - Sekth Popilh Belh Commemorates Victims of Bel-Air Assault
- - Increased Access to Health Care in Central Plateau
- - Cell Phones in Haiti, Digicel Signs up More Than 1 Million
- - from Jubilee USA: Haiti: Digging Through a
History of Economic Violence

US and Other Donors Support Education:

Thousands of Haitian schools reopened for the new school year last
month, thanks in part to the support of the United States and other
international donors. As Haiti's government works to recover from
years of instability, foreign aid remains a key source of backing for
its struggling education system. One year ago, violence between
criminal gangs, Haitian police and U.N. peacekeepers tore apart Cite
Soleil. Since then, joint police efforts have brought peace to the
nation's largest slum and allowed residents to return and businesses
to reopen. While the streets are much safer after the crackdown,
there are still few opportunities for Haiti's youth to receive an
education and rise out of poverty. On one cite Soleil corner,
resident Job Civil says he and many others wish for opportunities to
help them escape long days of boredom. He says young people have
little support, and what they need is an environment that will give
them an education and create jobs in the community.

For years, Haitian schools have suffered from lack of resources and
trained staff. Less than 70 percent of children attend primary
school, and a fraction of those will go on to complete high school
and college. One of the reasons is that the cost of schooling can be
high for many families in Haiti, where public funding supports only
about 10 percent of the nation's 15,000 primary schools. Religious
groups, community organizations and other private groups support the
vast majority of schools, such as the St. Germain school in Port-au-
Prince. The school's assistant principal, Ernst Alexis, says
conditions in Haiti mean that parents bear a large share of the
financial burden for their children's education. He says students,
parents and schools must make constant sacrifices, and many families
will do anything to find ways to send their children to school.
Alexis says many families struggle to pay school fees and purchase
supplies for their children, and while some students can afford
textbooks, others make do with photocopies.

In addition to supporting security efforts, the United States, United
Nations and other foreign partners have been trying to help rebuild
Haiti's education system. Over the past three years, the United
States has given $24 million to education efforts in Haiti, to train
teachers, develop programs and buy supplies. At a recent ceremony in
the capital, officials from the U.S. Agency for International
Development presented a check for $8 million for new textbooks and
other materials for the new school year. Haiti's Education Minister
Gabriel Bien-Aime welcomed the U.S. support to help expand the
Haitian government's role in education. He says the money will help
schools overcome some of the difficulties, as the government tries to
provide books, uniforms and other materials to students. (VOA, 10/5)

Countries Call for Extension of UN Peacekeeping Mission;
Deadline is October 15:

Countries in the U.N. peacekeeping force in Haiti are eager to stay
until the job of bringing security to the impoverished country is
done, Brazil's ambassador to Haiti said. The mandate of the U.N.
mission dispatched to Haiti in 2004 and led by Brazil is up for
renewal on Oct. 15. Haiti's path to stability will take more time,
Ambassador Paulo Cordeiro de Andrade Pinto said in telephone
interview from Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince on Tuesday night.
Andrade Pinto, who met with officials from countries in the U.N.
force last week, said they showed enthusiasm for continuing the
mission. However, the renewal resolution should also change the
mission's priorities to focus less on security and more on helping
development, he said. "This peacekeeping effort must be well-formed
and stay in Haiti as long as it is necessary," he said, adding that
he believed most Haitians want the nearly 9,000-strong force to stay.
(Reuters, 10/3)

The Bahamas has called on the United Nations (UN) to continue its
mission in Haiti for sustainable development, peace, security and
democracy. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs
Brent Symonette made the plea in an address at the 62nd Session of
the UN General Assembly in New York on October 2. We urge the
international community to support the people of Haiti in this
quest, he said. At a time when the international community is
engaged in serious reflections regarding the history and consequences
of slavery and the slave trade he said The Bahamas wishes to
recognise Haiti as the only country to liberate itself from slavery
and for the inspiration this provided to the international campaign
against slavery. Since modern forms of slavery still exist and many
people continue to be held in servitude we must not relent in our
resolve until everyone is able to enjoy and exercise the freedoms
which this organisation has worked so diligently to recognise, uphold
and defend, Symonette said. He noted that despite Haitis proud
history of becoming the first black republic in 1804 challenges have
beset The Bahamas neighbour for generations. Haitis return to
democratic order last year was especially welcomed and we celebrate
the strides Haiti is making along the difficult and arduous road to
peace, security and development, Mr. Symonette said. We heartily
commended President (Rene) Preval and his administration for their
stewardship of this demanding process. He also commended the
Organisation of American States (OAS) for its unstinting support of
the people of Haiti. The United Nations Mission in Haiti continues
to play a vital role in this process and The Bahamas supports the
call for that mission to be maintained so as to consolidate the gains
made to date and thus place our CARICOM sister country on a firm and
lasting path to sustainable development, peace, security and
democracy, Symonette said.(Caribbean Net News, 10/5)

Improved Environment for Freedom of Expression:

There has been an improvement in the situation of freedom of
expression in Haiti, officials of the Organization of American States
claim. The Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression
of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the OAS made the
claim during a recent visit to Haiti. Officials claim that the
information received from distinct sectors affirms that there has
been an improvement in the situation in the country. But they urged
for the adoption of measures to effectively protect the right to
freedom of expression. These include ensuring the effective and
prompt investigation, prosecution and punishment in cases of
assassination of journalists, and determining whether the murder was
related to journalistic activity. And the adoption of measures to
ensure that domestic legislation is compatible with the American
Convention on Human Rights regarding the right to freedom of
expression as well as the creation of laws in the area of access to
information to ensure that access to public information is guaranteed
as a human right. The current visit of the Office of the Special
Rapporteur to Haiti, that took place from September 26th through
September 28th, was based on efforts by the present government to
improve the human rights situation in the country. (Hardbeatnews.com,
10/5)

DR to Lead Hemisphere Fight Against Rubella:

Dominican Republic will head the hemispheres fight against rubella
and the congenital rubella syndrome, with the designation of the
First Lady Margarita Cedeqo as the continents ambassador for the
elimination of the disease. Cedeqos designation took place during
the Pan-American Health Organizations (OPS) 27th Pan-American
Sanitary Conference, held from October 1 to 5. In her speech before
the OPS the Dominican First Lady said last year more than five
million Dominicans between seven and 39 years of age were vaccinated
against rubella and the congenital rubella syndrome nationwide, which
prompted the international organism to grant the certificate on the
diseases elimination. Cedeqo said Dominican Republic is also
committed to collaborate with Haiti to eradicate the disease and will
accompany the Haitian authorities in the vaccination effort slated
for November. (Dominican Today, 10/6)

New Border Forces Have Taken Control of Haiti-DR Border:

The Specialized Frontier Security Corps (Cesfront) appears to have
taken effective control of the border between Haiti and the Dominican
Republic. According to the commanding general, Adriano Silverio
Rodriguez, "not even a reminder" has passed through the border.
During the first days and nights of their new job, the Cesfront
troops have picked up weapons and contraband goods as well as illegal
immigrants trying to enter the DR under the cover of darkness.
General Silverio did not tell reporters that there was a total
cessation of illegal activities along the border, but he emphasized
that new patrols were in place to greatly reduce the flow of illegal
goods. As perhaps an additional proof that things were changing, the
"El Espia" (The Spy) column in Diario Libre carried a note telling of
an incident in Jimani whereby a Cesfront lieutenant stopped a group
of civilians crossing the border assisted by a Dominican army major.
Although the major attempted to pull rank, the lieutenant stood firm
and the major had to back down. Some observers of the scene described
it as "a good start." (DR1 Daily News, 10/1)

Promoting Renewable Energy in the Caribbean:

Latin American energy and security policy expert Johanna Mendelson-
Forman is in the DR to promote the expanding use of renewable
energies. The DR is one of four countries (the others are Haiti, St.
Kitts-Nevis and El Salvador) participating in the U.S.-Brazil
Biofuels Partnership outreach program. Her visit is sponsored by the
Inter-American Development Bank, the Organization of American States
and the United Nations Development Fund. Mendelson has advocated for
a Hispaniola project on bioenergy, saying that it could create
significant benefits for peace and security, and lay the foundation
for greater cross-border cooperation with Haiti. Mendelson is a
senior associate of the Center for Strategic and International
Studies in Washington, DC. Under the partnership, the world's two
largest ethanol producers are committed to helping less-developed
countries in the Western Hemisphere to promote production of biofuels
from local crops, and reduce their dependency on fuel oils. The
partnership also intends to advance the research in and development
of more efficient biofuel technologies and to work toward a greater
convergence of biofuel standards around the world. For starters, the
partnership is funding feasibility studies to determine which types
of sugarcane and other plants, such as castor bean and jatropha
shrubs, are best suited to local conditions and examine other factors
such as soil quality, environmental impact and the potential for
rural development. The partnership was based on findings in a report,
"A Blueprint for Green Energy in the Americas" prepared for the Inter-
American Development Bank. See www.iadb.org/biofuels/ and http://
lugar.senate.gov/energy/hearings/pdf/060622/Forman_Testimony.pdf (DR1
Daily News, 9/20)

Sekth Popilh Belh Commemorates Victims of Bel-Air Assault:

Two years ago, on September 30, 2005, the de facto government of
Prime Minister Gerard Latortue and President Boniface Alexandre
launched a fatal assault on the people of Bel Air, a popular district
within Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince. Bel-Air residents speaking of
the assault, widely considered it similar to the attacks that US
soldiers have launched in Baghdad, Iraq. A mass in memory of the
victims of the assault, which Bel Air residents now refer to as
"Operation Baghdad" was celebrated on Sunday at the Church of Notre
Dame du Perpituel Secours, which is also the site of the Lady of
Perpetual Help. In attendance were Annette Auguste "So An", a folk
singer and Fanmi Lavalas activist, many residents, victims and local
Lavalassians as well as journalists of the international media. Also
in attendance was Paul Denis, a leader of Organisation du Peuple en
Lutte (OPL), an anti-Aristide political party. Attendees were unsure
if Denis was attending in an attempt to make peace with the people
that his past actions had harmed so much or if it was purely a
provocation. But in the church, in a communal atmosphere, there was a
feeling of open dialogue, something that Haitian priest Gerald Jean-
Juste called for last month.

Bel Air is a poor hillside district within Port-au-Prince. From Bel
Air one can see the National Palace, the National Port Authority
(APN) and other zones. It is also a zone of pilgrimage where people
travel through to visit the well-known and beautiful church.
According to Bel Air residents, the de facto government's assault
targeted those who called for the return of President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide, flown out of the country by US troops on February 29, 2004.
Aristide maintains that he was taken against his will. An official
investigation was never carried out by the OAS despite requests by
CARICOM, numerous African countries, Venezuela and Cuba. Evens
Elisma, a member of Sekth Popilh Belh, read a message of thanks but
also of dissatisfaction: "Today we gather in front of all the
authorities local and international and everyone present at the feet
of the Notre Dame of Perpetual Help who is the protective one and
champion of peace in Haiti. We ask for health, work, education and
vocational training this year. We thank the mothers of Bel Air,
because they didn't retreat when the de facto government asked them
to leave the church which would have allowed them to use heavy
weapons against the people. To all of them we say thank you. Sekth
Popilh Belh organized this event because it marks the first birthday
of the year of Peace, and the second birthday of the Baghdad
Operation launched against the people of Bel Air." Sekth Popilh Belh
stressed two other points. First Preval's statement "Look at me in
the eyes, I look at you in the eyes." They responded that Preval's
expression should be directed at former allies of Aristide who
betrayed Haitian democracy and participated in the coup d'etat of
2004 which cost Haiti thousands of lives and uprooted many more.
Secondly, they stressed that the local population's agreement with
MINUSTAH to guarantee peace and security for Bel Air has not been
honored by the UN soldiers. (People's Weekly World Newspaper, 10/04)

Increased Access to Health Care in Central Plateau:

An increasing number of Haitians living in the rural Central Plateau
region will soon be able to access healthcare with help from a Miami-
based group. The Green Family Foundation, a philanthropic
organization that supports health programs locally and in Haiti, says
it is committing an additional $2.4 million over the next five years
to fund community health programs in rural Haiti as part of its
expanding global health initiative. The foundation, led by Miami
Beach documentarian Kimberly Green, made the announcement this week
during former President Bill Clinton's third annual Clinton Global
Initiative in New York. The event brought together more 1,300 world
leaders in business and healthcare as well as heads of state
including Haiti President Reni Prival. ''More people will have access
to healthcare, more will have access to drugs and there will be more
treatment of TB, Malaria and HIV,'' Green said. Earlier this year,
Project Medishare, a medical mission affiliated with the University
of Miami and partly funded by the Green Family Foundation, reported
that it had seen a significant drop in HIV rates in Thomonde, the
central plateau town where it has been providing healthcare for
years. Green said that while some of the funds will go toward helping
Project Medishare continue its work in Thomonde, the funds also will
support other clinics in the area, expanding the number of people
being served from 45,000 to 75,000. Part of the money also will go
toward development activities with a focus on eliminating hunger,
improving income and providing clean water and education. ''We are
putting over 50 percent of the foundation's budget into this
program,'' Green said. Still, getting Haiti on the global healthcare
agenda is not easy said Green, who noted much of the discussion this
week in New York has focused on Africa. But by spending time with
those who are succeeding in Uganda and elsewhere on the Africa
continent, she said, she hopes to solutions for Haiti both with the
fundraising and the needed focus. (Miami Herald, 9/28)

Cell Phones in Haiti, Digicel Signs up More Than 1 Million:

In a country where most people live without paved roads, running
water or even electricity, there's one modern convenience that more
than a quarter of the people are enjoying: a cellphone. Cellphones
are connecting Haitians in unheard-of ways, touching the lives of
rich and poor, farmer and urbanite, and propelling this Caribbean
nation to nearly first-world stature -- at least when it comes to
talking on the phone. Consider what life was like for Soimise Lautin
before her daughter handed her a cellphone a year ago. To contact
relatives, the charcoal merchant had to take a three-hour journey in
overcrowded buses along perilous rural roads. "Now I don't have to do
that. I just call to know what is happening," said Lautin, one of the
millions of Haitians without any of the country's 150,000 expensive
and often unreliable land lines. "It has changed my life."

While the penetration of land lines remains at just 2 percent
countrywide, cellular penetration has increased from zero to 29
percent in less than 10 years, according to government figures. The
industry represents the largest investment in Haiti in decades.
"Cellular brings to the poor and marginalized people the feeling that
they are part of the society," said Jean-Marie Raymond Noel, who
oversaw a recent U.N. Development Program study of 13 major Haitian
cities that showed four out of five households had at least one
cellphone. The revolution is not limited to Haiti. Cellphones also
are spreading rapidly across the Caribbean region, where government
deregulation has led to competition, drastically reduced rates,
increased access, better service and even societal changes. The
cellular expansion has sprouted related businesses. In Haiti,
enterprising Haitians have realized they can make a living charging
others to use their cellphones, and have set up shops along the streets.

In Jamaica, like in Haiti, much of the cell expansion is credited to
Digicel which debuted in the Caribbean in 2001 with an offer of
affordable service. The telecommunications provider signed up 100,000
customers in 100 days. In response, other companies have been forced
to fast-track offerings of high-tech devices like the BlackBerry,
whose availability in the Caribbean significantly lagged that in the
United States until recently. The marketing blitz has extended to
South Florida, where local radio ads inform Caribbean natives that
they can now pre-pay cellular minutes for friends and relatives on
the islands. Haiti's HaiTel company allows Floridians to buy a phone
over the Internet and have it delivered anywhere in the mountainous
country. "Digicel is the new word for competition in Haiti," said
Kesner Pharel, a leading Haitian economist. "The revolution isn't
just with the cellphones but the way these people are managing their
companies. They are going right to people's faces and selling their
companies."

Digicel nonetheless recorded a 144 percent increase in overall
regional subscriber growth, with 5.2 million users in the 12-month
period ended in June. With 1.6 million customers in Haiti, Digicel's
customer base there is now nearly as big as that in Jamaica. Digicel
had projected signing up 300,000 users over two years. It instead
lined up 1 million in only eight months. "Haiti has been a phenomenal
success," Delves said. "Our experience has exceeded any of our
initial expectations." Digicel's decision to enter the Haitian market
was not based on a formal market survey, Delves said, rather via two
days of driving the traffic-clogged streets of this capital city.
"What we saw was a huge population that was being completely
underserved," Delves said. "There's just so much trading in Haiti
done on the streets. There's a big cash base and market
there." (Miami Herald, 9/30)

Haiti: Digging Through A History of Economic Violence

In mid-August 2007 Nazaire St. Fort and myself took a tap-tap
transport heading out on Delmas toward downtown Port-au-Prince, the
capital of Haiti. We soon passed in front of the National Palace, the
seat of so many past Haitian presidents and governments. Crossing a
street near the palace, we reached the Ministry of Planarization and
right next to it the Ministry of Finance. We visited two other
government ministries soon after, spending the next few days
traveling between them all, entering into rarely touched archives and
in the process probably bugging quite a number of ministerial
employees (although making friendly acquaintances along the way). In
one archive a young page told us that he believed some of the
documents had disappeared under the previous unelected interim
government, but he could tell us little more. His boss did not seem
friendly to the question when we pressed the issue. But overall, what
we found was astonishing.

Combing Through the Past: Our main goal was to gather as many
national government budgets as we could find from the '90s and 2000s
for further study. Many of Haiti's past government budgets are
unavailable online and we could not find any hard copy versions of
any of the budgets amongst any of our friends or contacts. But
finally there they were. We found them or at least some of them in a
glass cabinet of an employee at one of the ministries. The employee
was more then willing to answer our numerous questions and even
copied a few prints on his old copy machine. First, we looked through
a national government budget booklet from 1990, then another from the
1996 to 1997 fiscal year, which on the first few pages listed foreign
loans and aid coming into the country. It appeared to amount to a few
hundred million dollars for the year, possibly more. The smiling
government economist sitting in his chair leaned back. He seemed
surprised that Nazaire and I, both university students -- but from
different countries, one from Haiti and one from the United States --
were so fascinated with looking at these old, wrinkled financial
dossiers now mostly frayed at the corners. If anything, we were not
short on questions. We asked about the preceding years; where were
the budgets for the fiscal years of 1997 to 1998, 1998 to 1999 and
1999 to 2000? He responded that between the years 1997 and 2000,
because of an intransigent Senate, the government worked off of the
same 1997 budget.

A History of Economic Violence: Some of the donor-friendly elite
Haitian political parties throughout this time period (1997 to 2000)
were successful in holding up Haiti's legislature. They were upset
with elections that were not going their way. And other upsetting
factors included mass organizing on the part of popular movements and
Haiti's poor against the privatization program for which the
country's elite had so firmly advocated and staked their political
fortune. In 2000, Haiti entered another election cycle, which
overwhelmingly confirmed that Haiti's impoverished opposed the
neoliberal wide-scale privatization programs advocated for by the
donors and their local arbiters. The U.S. representative at the Inter-
American Development Bank (IDB) with Pres. George W. Bush in office
was soon lobbying for an all out embargo on financial aid to Haiti's
elected government. A top representative of the International
Republican Institute (IRI) made a similar argument in front of a U.S.
congressional hearing. The Haitian government economist smiled
because he knew what we were trying to figure out. "So you want to
know how much Aristide got cut off from?" He referred to Haiti's
former elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who had returned to
office in 2001 after leaving office in the first ever democratic
handover of power in Haiti, in 1996. The ministerial economist handed
us a sizable booklet, showing the 2001 government budget. Upon
opening the booklet, our jaws dropped.

Showing the Money: Nearly all of the foreign loans and aid had
disappeared. The money had vanished. Government road construction,
AIDs programs, water works and health care that were often contingent
upon these funds would have undergone a major funding crisis. So what
happened? This would have had to have led to a severe tightening of
resources; penny pinching just to get by; severe destabilization; and
an economic catastrophe. On the positive side, all we could glean was
that the Haitian government received a tiny sum of aid from Taiwan
and a small loan from Venezuela. We estimated -- adding the foreign
funding in with the actual real tax income of the government -- that
Haiti, according to the 2001 budget, had been cut off almost entirely
from what should have been around 40 percent to 55 percent of its
total budget. We could not believe our eyes.

The Truth? How could we have read so many journalists' stories on
Haiti, even written stories on Haiti ourselves and never realized the
full extent of this financial aid embargo? I had studied and
researched a good deal on development, donor organizations, foreign
aid and even dependency in Haiti but had never seen anything like
this: Aid starvation was used to such a large extent to crush an
elected government. It all became so much more clear just by looking
at the numbers. The aid embargo was so cruel, so inhumane that
Columbia University economist Jeffery Sachs could not contain his
disgust: "U.S. officials surely knew that the aid embargo would mean
a balance-of-payments crisis, a rise in inflation and a collapse of
living standards, all of which fed the rebellion." How can we even
begin to study Haiti during the 2000 to 2004 period without fully
studying the effects of this embargo? How can Haiti develop if aid is
so heavily fluctuating, flooding into the country during times of
palatable pro-privatization governments with the spigot cut off when
governments desire to preserve their civil enterprises?

The only helpful material I have been able to find that actually
discussed well the aid embargo were a number of distressful reports
sent out by Dr. Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners in Health and the
book Let Haiti Live published just prior to the 2004 coup of then-
president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Let Haiti Live includes a foreword
by minister-activist Jesse Jackson and Haitian literary giant Edwidge
Danticat. This book was a work meant to be read, but sadly few saw
its pages. And even fewer would see them in time. Haiti deserved and
deserves an international outcry over the unjust policies responsible
for an unquantifiable amount of suffering. The Robert F. Kennedy
Memorial Center, one of the few with the long-term commitment to
pursue this in the legal arena, late last year brought a lawsuit
against the U.S. Treasury Department (the initial promoters of the
aid embargo on Haiti). If the RFK is successful in its lawsuit, it
would be a monumental victory. Similarly, if Jubilee USA and
solidarity groups are successful in pressuring the U.S. Congress to
support dropping Haiti's onerous and odious debt, this debt
cancellation could benefit millions. The ability of Haiti's sovereign
institutions have long been twisted and contorted by foreign donors,
but by supporting Jubilee USA's work together with both drop-the-debt
activists and faith-based communities across North America we can and
will achieve some economic justice! (Jubilee USA Network, Jeb Sprague)

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